About Joshua

Joshua is a documentary filmmaker and a journalist. His work has been listed for a Grierson, A One World Media Best Television Documentary, Best Feature Documentary and a Frontline Award. He has worked with the BBC, PBS FRONTLINE, ITN PRODUCTIONS, SKY, The Times and with presenters such as Stacey Dooley, Benjamin Zand and Catrin Nye

Joshua Baker

Joshua is a award winning documentary filmmaker and a journalist. He prides himself on creating compelling human stories. He recently won a One World Media award and received 2 Emmy nominations. Alongside these, his work has been listed for 3 Grierson awards, A One World Media Best Television Documentary, Best Feature Documentary, The Refugee Reporting Award, Best New Voice, The Frontline Award. He is up for Best News and Current Affairs Programme at the Broadcast Awards in 2019.

As a director he has versatility allowing him to adapt to a given audience, often switching between younger audience focussed documentary and investigative current affairs journalism. He has made films with presenters/reporters and obs doc films.

He has a proven track record of securing specialist access and building relationships with contributors, including vulnerable people in often difficult circumstances, many of these relationships continue for years. He also has a track record of protecting highly sensitive sources.

Josh has a multi skill-set, being able to produce, direct and shoot to the standard of a Director of Photography - his filming has featured in British Cinematographer Magazine - and as a journalist, he has investigated stories that have featured on the covers of national newspapers. His work has aired with major broadcasters in the UK, US and globally. He combines strong journalistic grounding with creative and compelling story telling.

He has run edits for 60/45/30/15 min films as well as adapting cuts to provide shorter stories and material for marketing.

Current work

He is currently finishing a 2 year long investigation, a co-production for BBC 1 and Frontline PBS that is a 1-hour special commissioned by Charlotte Moore. It is also being adapted to a multi-part podcast. Alongside this he is the Director for an upcoming Louis Theroux and is developing a second film with Louis and his team.

Before that he made Stacey Dooley, Face to Face with ISIS (CLICK) that was the highest rated documentary on BBC IPlayer when it was released and one of the most popular shows overall on the BBC online at the time of release. Prior to that he made Africa's Billion Pound Migrant Trail (CLICK)with Ben Zand.Almost two million people watched on the first broadcast, it has since then been shown around the world. Early in 2017, he was an Investigative Producer on two fast turn-around films for BBC 1, following the terror attacks in Manchester and London. He was one of the first journalists to get intermit testimony from one of the friends of the Manchester bomber. He also completed a short film on life after ISIS in Mosul for the BBC and The Battle For Mosul (UK LINK) (US title, Battle for Iraq (LINK) for Frontline PBS and The Guardian. During filming Joshua narrowly survived an ISIS truck bomb (LINK). Before that he broke the global story of the death of Kadiza Sultana, on of the 3 girls known as the ‘Bethnal Green Girls’ who joined ISIS. Joshua was the the only filmmaker the family would trust to document the situation from the inside as they attempted to formulate a rescue plan. ITV News put him forward for a Foreign Press Award.

He has guest lectured at Cambridge University on the future of ISIS and was a key contributor to a report on the impact of warfare on civilians for the The International Committee Of The Red Cross (LINK).

Other work

He was the shooting PD on a series on refugees with ITN Productions for MSNNBC of 1x60 4x30 and 16x 3-5 min films. He was the Shooting PD on Lily Allan in the Calais jungle for the BBC, a film that generated substantial debate around child refugees. He has also worked with BBC News and with Catrin Nye for the Victoria Derbyshire program.

He made Welcome To The Mosque with Robb Leech that was nominated for an RTS.

His first film The Process, on the Middle East Peace Process, was nominated for The One World Media best Film and has been distributed internationally.

Professional Backdrop

He began in print, working for The Times and in less than 18 months went from being a desk researcher to Foreign News Night editor, being solely in charge of the foreign section second edition (the largest edition) of the paper. He also had two front page stories with the paper. This gave him a solid journalistic foundation. Some of his online work is here.

Cameras & Editing

Joshua has an advanced understanding of many camera systems, most commonly shooting on the C300 M2 with Primes. He also edits.

He understands the difference between risk and recklessness and has established a track record of thorough security planning and gaining acceptance from relevant communities and contributors on the ground. He has worked in many high-risk areas including in frontline combat, requiring him to mitigate, plan and react to a variety of risks, such as kidnap, life-threatening injuries, unexploded ordinance and many others. Most importantly, he has experience of when things don't quite work out, and the situation dictates that you must adapt. He is also a board member of the Frontline Freelance Register, a charity that is working with broadcasters and High Risk Advisors to improve safety training and standards for freelance journalists working across the media industry.

Hostile Environment/Security Training

Hostile Environment - AKE - 5-day course

Hostile Environment -1st Option - 3-day refresher

OSCE Mine, Trap, and Unexploded Ordinance Training and practical experience of working in the most IED areas on the planet.

Several first aid courses including first aid for hostile environments, with practical experience of administering first aid in life-threatening circumstances.

Ethical Hacking

He has also been a trainer on hostile environment courses, lecturing on surviving a terror attack and practical preparation for conflict as well as taking part in K and R training.

Additionally

He has worked with many NGO's in Humanitarian Emergencies to gather stories or document testimonies in challenging circumstances. He has also shot or directed commercials. Before that he worked on a total of 6 feature fictional films in the Art Department.